How to Make Friends
by Proverbial3013
Summary: An erratic, modern thing whose main purpose is to rescue modern!Caroline from Bimboland. But Darcy as ever makes a bit of a cake of himself over Elizabeth, the dear.
1. Tolerable, I suppose

Darcy's phone sputtered out a carrying rendition of _Sex on the Beach_ that had people staring and him cringing as he dragged it from his pants' pocket. Caro had stolen his phone and made it her personal ringtone a week ago and he kept meaning to change it, but when it wasn't embarrassing the hell out of him it was kind of funny.

_Sos_, her text read. _Hav prematurely dscendd 2 hel. Need strng dashing hero 2 save me. Pls pas on mesage wen u fnd hm._

_Saying im nt man enuf_, he texted back.

_Sayin gt ur as 2 44 curzon st immediatly. CANNOT survive brothr's engagment prty on my own. Wil owe u wee willy winki._

Despite the ridiculous nicknames, the phone stealing, and the fact that, yes, she could definitely be a bit of a bitch when the mood struck, Darcy was friends with Caroline Bingley for two reasons. One, she was sharp, driven, wickedly clever, and had been egging him into loosening up since the vodka mudslide incident at law camp that had brought them together. And two, he could relax round her because she didn't want to get with him.

"You're too decent," she had explained to him after their one and only foray onto intimate ground. She may even have patted him on the head. "I could have you, but I'd chew you up and spit you out, and then I'd have to pretend I had a conscience and you know how I hate that."

Darcy _was_ too decent, and possibly had inherited Caro's missing portion of conscience. Which was why he replied with an affirmative and set his feet towards a house full of drunk relatives that weren't even his.

"I don't know a single person here," Darcy muttered. He had been dutifully introduced to Charles and the fiancée on arrival then taken to loitering by the drinks table hoping no one would try and make him small talk. Or pour them a heavily doctored punch; he refused to be an enabler.

"You could get to know Charlie, I mean, if you wanted to drown in happiness."

"He has a lot of teeth."

Caro laughed. "True. Jane then, she's completely non-threatening, ridiculously sweet."

Jane Bennet did look ridiculously sweet, and very beautiful, and happy but not _adverbly_ happy. Not that it was Darcy's place to say, and it wasn't like he knew her or anything, but shouldn't a newly affianced, ridiculously sweet and very beautiful girl be looking supremely, hopelessly and/or overwhelmingly happy at her own engagement party? Surely there was a rule somewhere.

"I don't have a crowbar handy to squeeze me into that crowd. Have you ever tried the Crazy Bear on Whitfield Street? They make a good cocktail."

"Oh, Fitzy, Fitzy, Fitzy; when will we ever make a shark out of you? Look upon this as an opportunity. You're the only male that three-rooms worth of women can say with a certainty they are not related."

Darcy raised one eloquent brow.

"Come off it. We are getting you laid. What about the sister? She was giving you a once-over."

"Which sister? There's at least fourteen of them in the living room alone."

"The one that isn't jail bait or horrifically frumpy. 'Bout our age, dark hair, red dress."

"She was cute, I suppose," he said after a brief scan of the room to refresh his memory that turned up nothing, "but she's the kind who dates dickheads because they're '_exciting_' then complains about there being no decent guys. Fuck that, I've got better things to do with my time."

Too late, Darcy noticed Caro had gone still and was now slowly lighting up with glee. He tensed. Nothing good ever came of Caro being gleeful.

"She's right behind me, isn't she."

"And doing an excellent job of pretending she didn't hear you. Hi," Caro extended her hand over his shoulder, "Caroline, your soon to be sister-in-law in case your brain's as shit with names as mine is. I know I should apologise but I'm finding this pretty fucking hilarious. The idiot's name is Will, Fitzwilliam Darcy."

Turning his head was an excruciatingly slow and weighty process. He hoped like hell he wasn't blushing. His lips formed something that may or may not have been a smile.

"Fitzwilliam?" the sister said. "Ouch."

"His parents probably thought he was cute enough to get away with it."

She smiled sweetly, and Darcy thought for a minute she might be one of those forgiving types that he didn't understand at all but right now could totally get onboard with the idea of. Then she opened her mouth.

"If you like tall and broody, I suppose. I don't know, you gave it your best shot but you're just not enough of a dickhead to tempt me. But hey, _best_ of luck with the getting laid thing, Fitzwilliam." She gave his arm a little chummy punch. "And so nice meeting you, Caroline."

"Oh child," Caro drawled as the sister calmly picked up her drinks and walked away. "Great Aunt Lynne's around here somewhere and always has aloe vera in her purse."

"You're a fucking riot, Caroline."

"What do you even care, Darce? She's a nobody you'll never see again. Problem not solved, not even averted, but _completely nonexistent_."

"That's not the point."

"You weren't even interested; it's entirely the point."

"No, the _point_ is that your brother's fiancée's sister is wandering about thinking I'm the biggest douchebag to ever contain a shower."

"Darcy, let's get this straight: it does. not. matter."

"But –"

"Do I need to whack you upside the head to get it through your thick skull, Will?"

Fortunately, Charlie's head appeared around the doorframe calling Caro away for family photographs before she could follow through.

Darcy pretended to get a text to avoid having to make eye contact with anyone, and calculated how soon he could leave without seeming rude.

Any more rude.

If that was even possible.

_FML_, he replied to the imaginary person.

* * *

><p><em>I unashamedly love Caroline Bingley; I think she's brilliant. I also think her jealous behaviour over Darcy is a product of the times – marriage is the only viable option available to her so of course she'd want the best. But give her the options of the twenty-first century, and she'd be a sharp-as-a-tack career woman with no need for the mess of a man in her life. None of this sycophant bimbo modern fanfics seem too often to turn her into. That's my take anyway.<em>


	2. Fine Eyes

"Shit," said Caro. "You're absolutely right. Look at her: she smiles more at her dad than she does at Charlie."

"Caro, keep your voice down, for fuck's sake."

"No. Charlie may be a numpty but he's my fucking numpty, and he deserves someone as googly-eyed and pathetic as he is."

Darcy checked around the table of assorted Bingley/Bennet family members, but the other diners were blessedly oblivious to Caro seething beside him.

Two days ago, he almost really had reconciled his rudeness with the fact that he was never going to see another Bennet again, when Caro had perched on the corner of his desk in the library then reclined across his textbooks.

"Fitzwilliam Darcy, I _need_ you."

"It's the smoulder, I can't help it. Take an aspirin and call a doctor in the morning," he said without lifting his gaze from _R v. Horncastle_.

"Mr Arcy-Darcy, you know how I've been holding the threat of toga party over your head all year? I'm giving you one chance, and one chance only to get out of it."

Darcy flicked his gaze up from his photocopies to Caro, "Uh-huh? This is your way to make me do two things I'd rather not because you will have, without fail, forgotten this Deal of a Lifetime come September so how about you cut the crap. I've got a tute to prepare."

"We've been feeling a bit fighting frisky all week, haven't we, Will? Still blaming me for your faux pas. But don't you think, since your conscience is hanging you anyway, it might as well be for a sheep as for a lamb? It'll be more fun than dumbing down –what's it? – hearsay laws for darling first years to understand."

"You've read _R v. Horncastle_? What do you think of the implications–"

"Focus, Darcy." Caro snapped her fingers under his nose. "I want to piss off one Elizabeth Bennet. You could be my way in."

"Which one's she?"

"Wee Willie, for fuck's sake, keep up. Elizabeth Bennet, the sister, the one who shot you down in flames: we hate her now."

"I'm not a girl," he reminded her. "I don't have to hate people indiscriminately because a friend told me to."

"She thinks I'm a stuck-up bitch."

"And . . .?"

"And she should not make snap judgements and go mouthing off to her sister within hearing of my brother, who will then come to me all remorsefully and ask if I could be nicer to Jane's sister like I'm the fucking bad guy in this situation. So you're coming with me to the next round of pre-wedding get-togethers to be a thorn in her side, and we will hate on her together. _Nobody_ calls me a bitch without just cause."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"But you'll do it, right?" she said, pinching his cheek. "Because I asked."

Of fucking course he would. So here he was miserably awkward, again. Unable to beat his grey matter into giving him something to talk about with the stranger next to him, _again_. And to top it off, he had suggested to a woman who had no compunction speaking her mind that maybe the bride-to-be wasn't all that in love while they were in a private function room filled with said bride-to-be's relatives and friends.

What the hell, brain.

He was fine with friends, he was fine teaching tutorials, he was fine in mooting finals before three knighted judges of the realm, but put him in a normal social situation with strangers and his higher brain function just switched off.

"Hey, do you dance?" said a pair of breasts propped up around a girl's collarbones. Then Darcy got to a face: Bennet sister, one of the jail-baits. The other one was giggling over the boy plugging his ipod into the sound system.

"No."

"Well, maybe I can convince you..."

"It's thoughtful of you to ask, but I wouldn't want to keep you from your school friends." He kept his voice very polite and genial. If there was one thing dealing with his sister and her friends, it was that being polite, boring, and treating the person in question like a slightly stupid child was the best way to rid oneself of a hormonal teenage girl.

The Bennet rolled her eyes and dismissed him with an emphatic, "Ew."

And just when he thought he'd escape his social-interaction obligations for the night, the hot sister appeared in front of him. Elizabeth, her name was Elizabeth. She didn't really look like an Elizabeth. What's in a name? Focus, Fitzwilliam.

"That was well done," she was saying, and smiling. A small smile, but like a _smile_. "Lydia can be a hard burr to unstick when she puts her mind to it."

"Heyyyy, Liz-ster!" Was Caro trying to be the most embarrassing person on the planet? She slung an arm around Darcy's neck and smiled at Elizabeth. "Looks like your little sisters are hijacking my brother's dinner and turning it into a dance party; so _cute_. It must be crazy living in a household with so much ... initiative going on."

"I'm on my way to turn the music down," Elizabeth told her, "I just wanted to say to–"

"_Absolutely_, you two should totally dance – you wouldn't say no, would you, Darcy?"

Caro was too close and at the wrong angle to be given a proper death stare, and anyway it was kind of satisfying to see Elizabeth Bennet colour up and fluster.

"That is so, I mean, I wouldn't – that is _not_ why I came over here. Please, don't think that I..."

"If you want to dance, whatever, sure," he told her graciously.

She was kind of cute when she was pole-axed. "_No._ I am, that is, it's just one of those social graces that passed me by I guess. I don't dance, thanks."

"Any man-crazy teenager who wants to grind up against a guy's groin can dance."

The_ fuck_, brain.

"Excuse me?" She looked at him, then pointedly at her younger sisters dancing, and back at him in case he wanted to rephrase. His tongue had become the size and flexibility of a sea cucumber. But really she should be thanking him for unflustering her; there was nothing flustered about her glare."Careful, Fitzwilliam; I just got a little flutter of attraction on my dickhead meter."

She smiled politely over eyes of pure ice, and sauntered away leaving Darcy to attempt an extraction of the foot in his mouth. But she'd remembered his name and what she'd overheard him saying two weeks ago, so just maybe she had replayed that meeting in her mind as many times as he had. Fuck, what kind of thought was that – when had he turned into a girl?

"I can guess what you're thinking," Caro purred right next to his ear.

"I doubt it."

"You're thinking one Elizabeth Bennet is cuter than you thought, maybe even verging on hot – all legs for Africa and big eyes that would just eat you up if it hadn't been for mean old Caroline ruining everything before it even began."

Darcy gave her the patented Fitzwilliam Fuck You Eyebrow and refused to play ball. "Actually, I was thinking about the ramifications of Article Six of the ECHR on the admissibility of evidence to the Supreme Court made by a witness who is identified but does not appear in court."

"Mr Darcy, I'm all astonishment," she smiled and ruffled his hair with an affectionate hand. "Good work on Plan Lizzie B Is a Hater, she looked pissed as hell."

"Then my night is complete: there's no higher achievement to unlock. I'll see you at lecture tomorrow." And with that Darcy evasive manoeuvred the hell out of dodge while he still could.

* * *

><p><em>The reason behind the 'fine eyes' switch-around is that since the last time I watched 1995 BBC miniseries, I've been convinced that that comment is less about Mr Darcy being overwhelmed by his appreciation of Elizabeth's eyes and letting slip more than he meant to, and more about Miss Bingley presuming to be his confidante and knowing what he was thinking and Darcy shutting her down. Seriously, watch it again and tell me Colin Firth is not saying, 'No, I'm not bored; I'm thinking about hot girls who aren't you, suck it'.<em>

_I'm writing this story as I have the inspiration so expect an erratic updating schedule, and for only the interesting scenes to appear - but we all know _Pride and Prejudice_ well enough to roll with it, right?_


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